Page 92 - The 7 Day Startup: You Don’t Learn Until You Launch - PDFDrive.com

months. This was bare minimum and thankfully WP Curve outpaced this
significantly.

With any business I’ve started, my primary goal has been to get to a point where
I’m paying myself a reasonable wage as early as possible. The figure I’ve always
used is $40,000 per year. If I can get to the point where I’m paying myself a
wage of $40,000, I know I have enough there to keep the business going.
Eventually I have the faith that I’ll continue to improve this number.

With WP Curve, I got ten customers in the first week. It broke even after 23 days
and I hit my $40k annual estimated wage in about six months, as a result of
exceeding 10% growth each month. After 13 months that amount was over
$130,000.

The metric of choice has always been MRR. I’ve kept a spreadsheet from day
one that translates this number into an estimated wage for each founder and
reports monthly growth rates.

Every business is different and your OMTM may be different. Recurring
businesses are easier to understand. Your OMTM is getting more people signing
up than those leaving. On the other hand, product businesses or project based
businesses are a bit trickier.

Here are some general principles around setting your OMTM target:

Make it a financial metric, not a vanity metric like website visits or
Facebook likes.
Pay particular attention to who is signing up. If it’s just your friends, then
that’s very different from the general public.

Save your excitement until you land

people